MA Students

Aidan Davis is a Master’s student at the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice, from Charlotte, North Carolina, USA. She is a poet, advocate, and aspiring fantasy writer. Her interests include how those marked other are broken but not fragile, how to love, the meaning of loving, and the joy of the oppressed. Using a black feminist/womanist lens, her honors thesis focused on her personal negotiations of self-love, black love, and their political intersections with colourism and black joy in the U.S. Her current research scope is the policing of black women and the ways in which their humanity is marked “debatable.” She is driven by what makes her feel lost. Additionally, she claims to love coffee but secretly just likes cream and sugar and she loves/hates young adult fiction.

Evelyn Elgie is a queer settler-culture Canadian. She is a poet, writer and editor whose work deals with landscape, embodiment, and dislocation. Her current research is focused on asexuality, the split-attraction model, and essentialist discourse surrounding (a)sexuality as identity, as well as gendered understandings of intimacy and family structures.

I hold a BA in Modern Languages (Spanish and Italian) from the University of Birmingham in the UK and have been living in Japan for the past few years. The gender inequality I explored during undergrad and experienced first hand in the Uk, Spain, Italy and Japan is what motivates me to continue my academic career. My interests are gender and law, sexualisation and sexual violence, transnational feminist networks and cultural difference.

As a Desi-American from Cleveland, One of the most frequent reactions to my story I hear is that people “like me” could not possibly come to exist. That is, they mean, someone “like me” must be Coastal, and White. I seek to challenge the narratives of people “like me” in showing that places and peoples considered “fly-over territory” do indeed have their own narratives.

Xianghui Li is an MA student at the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice. She holds a Bachelor’s degree and a Master’s degree in English Language and Literature. She was an ESL teacher and did research on pedagogy and stylistics. Her current research interest is feminism, migration and violence.

Tessa MacIntyre is a Masters Students in the Gender, Race, and Social Justice Institute. She has a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Film Production and Studies from the University of Regina. While completing her undergraduate program, Tessa developed a strong interest in documentary filmmaking, and looks to filmmakers such as Sarah Polley, Errol Morris, and Bonni Cohen as influences.

Travelling since the tender age of 6 months, I have always had an interest in the world and the people in it. My love of language led me to ESL, but my interest in social issues, media and activism led me to The Social Justice Institute. It is my hope to ‘put my money where my mouth is’ and learn what needs to be done, and the best way to do it.

Jade Pollard-Crowe has traveled here from the UK to complete her Masters in the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice. She grew up in Cambridge although has strong cultural ties to her Jamaican ancestry. Jade’s research is concerned with evaluating the possibilities and limits of arts-based activism today particularly focusing on queer, racialized, feminist artists and activists in Britain. How do artists, performers, activists work to challenge mainstream culture, dominant ideology and social constructs whilst functioning within them? What new questions are being asked and how are the outstanding questions requiring provocation being aroused? These are some of the inquiries that underpin her thinking.

Through her own art practice, among other concerns, Jade examines the portrayal of Black bodies in popular culture and critiques these representations through a queer lens. Moving between masculine and feminine energies on stage she aims to offer audiences the opportunity to consider the celebration of gender fluidity and acknowledge the intersection, not separation, of gender, race and sexuality.

Romina Tantalean is a Master’s student at the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice from Peru. Her academic background includes a degree in Law with specialization studies in Public Management. She has professional experience of more than five years in Human Rights, Gender and Development fields in a wide range of institutions.

Sejin Um is an MA student at the Social Justice Institute who is interested in gender; work; family; education; and social movements. She holds a BA in International Studies and Law and Public Administration from Korea University. Prior to joining the MA program, she worked in the private sector for three years, and the work experience there strengthened her passion for feminist research and activism. She has been part of the millennial feminist movement in South Korea since 2015, both on-line and off-line, studying feminist theories and organizing various events, marches and protests with multiple organizations and groups. She continues to be engaged in the women’s movement in South Korea and is also currently involved in feminist communities in Vancouver, Canada.

As a first year MA student at the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice, I would like to further investigate what it means to be of mixed race in Canada and how to navigate the space in-between cultures. I feel it would be of benefit to develop research on this theme in relation to the theory of the Third Space. As I have previously completed a BFA, I would also like to explore how I can use my art practice as a means of communication and “a way of knowing” in relation to these themes.